My job for E3 2011 was pretty straightforward: I code and post the
articles and images that our Ten Ton Hammer crew sent back from the
con. While Ethec, Ben, and Sardu were busy partying after hours with hot
booth babes, enjoying luxurious accommodations, and being wined and
dined by industry bigwigs, yours truly was sitting in his home office
(by office, I mean desk in my bedroom) posting away at odd hours. (The
con was on the West Coast and I live on the East Coast.)

While sifting through the myriad images and articles, a few caught my
eye and piqued my interest. While everyone is looking forward to games
like
style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars: The Old
Republic
or
href="http://tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2339">
style="font-style: italic;">TERA,
there were quite a few games shown at E3 that looked extremely fun and
interesting which made me go, “Damn. This sounds really cool
and I’d love to play it. When does it come out? Fourth
quarter of 2011 if I’m lucky? Argh!!!” However,
future release dates don’t deter me as they can only add to
the final thrill of the game’s release. Anyway,
let’s look at the five games that really grabbed me from E3
2011.

PAYDAY

Developed by Overkill and being published by Sony,
href="http://tentonhammer.com/payday/e3/2011/first-look">
style="font-style: italic;">PAYDAY
is a co-op
game of bank heists and doing mischief. With six different scenarios at
launch and more planned, it looks like there’ll be lots to do
robbing banks, prison transport hijacking, and robbing a corporate
party ala Die
Hard. I’m stoked
about this game because co-op
gaming has come back in a big way in the last couple of years and
I’m a huge fan. Games like
style="font-style: italic;">Left 4 Dead
and Borderlands
allow
you to play with a core group of friends with the focus on action.PAYDAY
seems to follow in
style="font-style: italic;">Left 4 Dead’s
footsteps in that
you’re part of a four man team, which can be filled out by
your buds or the computer. In addition, you can level your character
and unlock new abilities by doing more heists, which adds incentive to
keep playing. Plus, I love a good first-person-shooter and the
scenarios presented here are different from the norm. If you ever
wanted to try your hand at robbing a bank just like you saw in
style="font-style: italic;">Heat,
now’s your chance.

Neverwinter

I’ve been a long-time player of
style="font-style: italic;">Dungeons and Dragons
(starting back in 1981), so any game that takes place in anyD&D
setting gets my notice. What has got me excited about
href="http://tentonhammer.com/neverwinter/e3/2011/closer-look-at-foundry-toolset">
style="font-style: italic;">Neverwinter
isn’t what the story is going to be, but rather
the fact that Cryptic is including their Foundry toolset to allow
players to create their own adventures and share them. The Foundry
toolset has kept
style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Online
going and we all know that gamers are
a creative, inventive lot. We all played the mods created forNeverwinter
Nights more than the regular
game, so I’m
expecting more of the same from
style="font-style: italic;">Neverwinter.
The toolset is easily
accessible to players who don’t have much experience at
modding, but appears to have a great deal of depth for more experienced
modders. Being able to play loads of different mods for the same game
is like buying one game, but being able to play dozens.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The reason why I’m looking forward to
href="http://tentonhammer.com/skyrim/e3/2011/first-look">
style="font-style: italic;">Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
is because of
style="font-style: italic;">Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
I had so much insane fun
playing Oblivion
with its open world and tons of different storylines
and quests. The Assassin’s Guild storyline in
style="font-style: italic;">Oblivion
was
the most brilliant questline I’ve ever seen in a game.
Hearing that
style="font-style: italic;">Skyrim
will be open world with over 150 dungeons (when I
hear 150 dungeons, I start hyperventilating like Dennis Hopper in
style="font-style: italic;">Blue
Velvet!) for you to adventure
through. Not to mention the
href="http://tentonhammer.com/skyrim/e3/2011/skyrim-gallery">gorgeous
graphics of the game. I love theElder
Scrolls games because you can
play the character you want! You can be a deathly sword wielder, a
powerful practitioner of magic, a deadly assassin, or a combination of
all of the above. The choice is up to YOU. It’s like
old-school RPG-gaming with you having the freedom to do what you want.
I can’t wait to get wasted by my first dragon!

Defiance

I believe I mentioned that I love first-person-shooters and have since
the original
style="font-style: italic;">Doom
came out. Trion Worlds has teamed up with the SyFy
Channel (whom I have a love/hate relationship with) to create
href="http://tentonhammer.com/defiance/e3/2011/first-look">
style="font-style: italic;">Defiance,
a futuristic shooter that will cross both game and tv series.
What’s interesting here is that game will evolve whether
you’re in the game or not. Logging out in a forest and then
logging back in only to find yourself in the middle of a huge firefight
sounds exciting. The ability to impact the lore of the tv show by
playing the game sounds appealing. I can see a two-way interaction
between the game and tv show where ideas and plots can flow both ways.
The game also has their own version of public quests (which I adore) in
the form of Arkfalls.
style="font-style: italic;">Defiance
is also mission driven so you
won’t be gunning for no reason, unless you want to!

Rusty Hearts

Perfect World offers up the co-op game of
href="http://tentonhammer.com/rusty-hearts/E3/2011/preview">
style="font-style: italic;">Rusty Hearts,
wherein three
heroes fight against the oppressive Vampire Lord. The game mechanics
seem solid and the gameplay action-packed. I can’t stress
enough how much I love action-packed co-op games that get you in the
action right at the start and are fun. While there are only three
characters, there is a great deal of customization to allow you to
stand out from the horde. The quest design is of a central hub with
instanced quests, which is a design that I worship as you
don’t waste time travelling or fighting crap that you
don’t care about. Get in the action right away is my motto.
There is also a story to be told here about the characters, but
it’s not all grim and serious as there’s a good
deal of humor mixed in.
style="font-style: italic;">Rusty Hearts
is a throwback to the good old
arcade and console games of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Grab some
friends and beat the crap out of bad guys. How can you go wrong with a
design philosophy like that?

While other games are grabbing all of the spotlight, there are quite a
few games at E3 2011 that should grab your attention as they did mine.
With old-school style games like
style="font-style: italic;">Rusty Hearts,
RPGs such as
Neverwinter
and Skyrim,
and shooters of
style="font-style: italic;">Defiance
and PAYDAY,
there are a number of
different play styles to suit everybody’s taste. I know
I’m looking forward to playing these games even though my
bank account isn’t!